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General Montgomery's Double In WW2

Doubles always interest me and they often go to show why we can't always believe what we see.

Take the famous deception caused in the Second World War by Monty's Double. Monty being General Montgomery (photo top right) the British soldier who was the commander-in-chief of all ground forces for the Normandy landings in 1944.

Security chiefs hatched a plan to delude the German forces that Montgomery was going to lead an invasion from southern France, rather than from Normandy. They decided to do this by using a double.

Lieutenant Clifton James (photo right), by some strange coincidence, just happened to be the spitting image of Monty. James was seconded into action and his first job was to study the general's voice, gestures and mannerisms including the way he saluted and pinched his cheek while thinking.

By another coincidence James was previously an actor, so he had an advantage in trying to become Montgomery's lookalike. The only thing that bothered him was trying to fully capture the general's personality. He later wrote in his book I was Monty's Double, "He was so unique and overpowering that I despaired ever being him. It was one thing to ape the outside of a man, but quite another to acquire something of his fire and forcefulness."

Lieutenant Clifton James needn't have worried as he perfected everything and flew to Gibraltar as General Montgomery. Here he was greeted by the British Governor and by 'coincidence' also to several of Hitler's known secret agents.

He did a repeat performance in Algiers where he met - and was cheered by - British troops. News of Monty's whereabouts and plans travelled fast and were passed back to the German High Command via their 'secret' agents. The Germans had been taken in by a believable double.

In 1961 Hollywood ran with this idea in a movie, On the Double, staring Danny Kaye as an American GI with a resemblence to a British colonel. When the colonel becomes the target of an assasination plan, the GI is given a bliz course in being a colonel and moves in to double for the real guy. As I remember, the movie is set just pre-D-Day and was actually quite funny.

Barbara Martin: That's the interesting bit about coincidences: are they more than just chance? I like your idea of ordained meetings from above. As I see it everything is linked: past, present, future and sometimes the coincidences do turn out to be meaningful i.e. synchronicity at work. Other times the coincidences seem to have little meaning other than perhaps reminders for us to pay attention to what is happening.

I started blogging about six years ago, my main blog now being 67 Not Out - the initial idea was to write about coincidences and synchronicity but I then moved on to other themes as well and currently write about things that interest me: the mysteries of life for example - what the heck is it all really about?